


ENTER THE DARK CARNIVAL

by eremroyal



Category: Homestuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-28
Updated: 2013-02-11
Packaged: 2017-11-27 06:54:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/659143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eremroyal/pseuds/eremroyal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A new player from another destroyed session joins the gang on the meteor, and Gamzee has his eye on her as the newest paint for his murals. However, most paint doesn't usually tie you up and stab you in the chest until your will breaks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. BE KARKAT ==>

BE KARKAT ==>

You were having a moment of peace when your world was rocked by a force that gave no hint to its identity other than a boom. You were having a moment, nay a rare whole several minutes all to your angry little self in some other abandoned hole in the meteor you reside in. You were sitting on an unopened chest, staring at fuck all, and helping all your anxieties worry away at your brain like a barkbeast with a chunk of freshly hunted troll flesh. You were attempting to file away your ever present bitter jealousy of the girl of your flush falling literally blindly in love with that FUCKING TOOL as a thing of the past, when you were forcibly ejected from your broodingchest into the opposing wall, turning you into an incoming nuclear missile of swears. After exploding on the wall with a violent mushroom cloud of "FUCK", you gathered yourself and your sicklekind from your strife specibus. Now you are presently dashing through the halls, get the fuck out of your way, over the handle you go, screaming all the way.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!" you yelled. "KANAYA, HUMANS, SOMEONE, WHAT'S GOING—"

You almost meet your maker at the end of a glowing rainbow drinker's chainsaw, as you come hurtling around a corner too fast and scared the living bejesus out of her. Her black magic matesprit was by her side, as usual.

KARKAT: HOLY FATHER OF ALL SHITS WATCH WHERE YOU'RE SWINGING THAT  
KANAYA: I'm Sorry Karkat You Surprised Me  
KARKAT: I HAVE BEEN ANNOUNCING MY PRESCENCE AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS, HOW THE FUCK DID THAT NOT GET THROUGH TO YOU  
KANAYA: I Apologize Again That I Didn't Hearken To Your Characteristic Vocal Belligerence But In Case You Didn't Hear There Seems To Be A War Waging On The Deck  
KARKAT: OH GOD, DO YOU THINK JACK FOUND US?  
ROSE: I don't think so. The menace that I'm feeling from the commotion doesn't feel like his. Also, there are two of them.  
KARKAT: JESUS, ALRIGHT FUCK IT LET'S JUST GO CHECK IT OUT AND HOPE THAT WHATEVER THE FUCK IT IS, WE CAN KILL IT FIRST

You all proceed to scurry towards possible death or victory, pausing before the hatch leading to aforementioned possibilities. You give one last look to your two followers, registering their grim nods. Taking a deep breath, you throw the portal open and charge out into the deck, skidding to a halt as you come face to face with an unknown god tier and its bizarre halberd pointing directly into your suddenly panic-stricken eyeball.

When you're done shitting yourself with oh-fuck-I'm-dead terror, and after you realized that whoever the fuck this is isn't about to thread your eye to your think pan, you take a good look at the unkown god tier. Gray damselfly-esque wings quivered from the back of a black, oddly shabby coat with a high collar. The hood of the coat was pulled up and over the god tier's face, and was fastened at the neck to the high collar, completely hiding the whoever the fuck's identity. A hint at its gender/species was revealed as female/human by the strapless one piece under the coat. The jumper, in contrast to the coat, was a shining silver color with intricate rune-like detail swirling with every movement over the silk-like fabric, ending in puffy pantaloons at the knee. The horribly positioned halberd was also silver, or at least the bladed half of it was. The silver metal spiraled at the halfway point in the staff, connecting with a twirl of black wood that straightened out at the other end of the halberd in the shape of a…pencil? As you admire the strange properties of this artistic weapon, your cranium cogs come slamming to a halt when the god tier speaks to you. Not only that, but she's saying something that has the formerly mentioned cogs quitting from their usual duties entirely and absconding from your think pan on an impromptu vacation.

"Oh my god, you're Karkat."

 

BE THE WHOEVER THE FUCK GOD TIER ==>

It happened. It actually fucking happened. Throughout these past several, dreadful, catastrophe-laced years of your life playing this game, you always wondered whether or not you would meet the fabled cast off of which your game was supposedly based on, AND that endless fuckfest web comic known as Homestuck. And now you have your X-Actostrator barely tickling the see-orb of one of your favorite characters.

"Oh my god, you're Karkat."

You unwillingly leave him to shit concrete rectangular prisms over your utterance when you're violently blasted away by a black pillar of corrosive energy that you almost barely deflect with the Illustration of a shield you hastily sketched with the other end of your spear of doodle life-bringing. You crash land after several meters, rolling a couple more before flipping onto your feet. You brace yourself and bring the X-Actostrator to the ready as you gaze across the deck to meet the cold, hateful gaze of your ex-boyfriend.

Let's take a ganderstroll down the past few years of increasing pain and tragedy. It all started when Athaza introduced you to a web comic thousands of unnecessary pages long called "Homestuck." At first you couldn't possibly begin to even tryto want to know why you should devote hours to reading about an overly positive pussy by the label of "John Egburt" fighting jester imps and searching for his daddy. But like every dedicated Homestuck fan, Athaza paved the way to a hopeless addiction for you by inciting words of encouragement such as "Keep reading, it gets better" or "Wait til you get to the trolls."

The trolls are what or who did you in. You loved the fuck out of those trolls, followed the shipping, became enamored of their varying personalities and traits. So how fucking cool was it when Hussie released Sburb on the real market? You got one immediately, as did Athaza and her boyfriend Zemi. You were surprised to find that your pessimistic and cynical Ourano also bought himself a copy. He pretty much abhors the internet and knows nothing of the comic, why would he pick this game to play out of all others? He explained it away as coincidence at the time, just needed another video game to play. But then you realized that the copies you, Ourano, Athaza, and Zemi had were the real deal. And then you realized after a time that Ourano knew this as well all along. But it wasn't until after the sudden destruction of your worlds and the brutal deaths of Athaza and Zemi, and then the current attempt on your own life did you realize that he had no intention of being a father of a new universe. After all the time and pain you sacrificed to curb his inborn psychotic anger, he merely learned to put on a mask in your presence while playing the mindless destroyer of worlds behind your back. Now the mask was gone forever, and he is presently attempting to play the role of the destroyer of…you. To be possessed by him entirely via the black passage of death, or whatever bullshit insanity he spouted before he attacked you. You were alternately battling and fleeing from him when you used the blade end of your X-Actostrator to cut a window through space when you were in a tight spot, and popped into the reality of people you believed only existed in a fairytale. A romantically clusterfucked interspecies fairytale that took place in paradox time and space.

Ourano is an extremely adept Heir of Void, who can freely manipulate void energies as a weapon, rather than more passive uses of Void powers such as teleportation and cloaking. It took form in a black, oily fire-like aura that disintegrated whatever mass it touched. He was hurling the terrible stuff at you now, easily eating away into any part of the meteor it touched. Quickly, you sketch multiple mini meteors with the X-Actostrator, and send them flying at the dark tendrils of destruction emanating from Ourano. With each hit, the meteors would dissipate, but so did the void energies; creation and erasure cancelled each other out. He smiles, and his eyes drift to a frantic noise coming from the space he blew you away from. You looked to Karkat too, and see that Kanaya and Rose have joined him, needlekind and chainsawkind at the ready. He was yelling and vehemently gesturing in a mad attempt to not understand the situation, at all, and almost forgetting the present danger that floated nearby, which had unleashed another bolt of void energy at the three.

Before they could react, you whip the Illustrator (pencil) part of your staff around to sketch out a wall that you bring to life between the trolls and the voidbolt. As the wall disintegrates with the blast, Rose flies through. Rambling something in the broodfester tongues, she directed both needles in Ourano's direction, capturing him mid-air much to his surprise. He has never read the comic as mentioned earlier, so he knew nothing of other players, or the fact that they had powers that could rival his. The veins in Ourano's face bulged with rage, and his void flame flared, corroding the thread and freeing his right arm. This was then daintily hacked off via Kanaya chainsaw follow up, Rose watching from behind with a smirk. That's fucking teamwork.

Regardless if the man you love destroys all you hold dear, kills your friends, then tries to kill you, love is still love. You stared in horror, a cry strangling itself in your throat while you watched Ourano shriek with pain as blood gushed from his arm. In a massive flare of void, he completely freed himself from the threads and began flying back towards the window you both initially entered from.

"I'll never forgive you, Erem you fucking whore!" he screamed. "I'm going to kill you, you're dead you stupid fucking bitch, I'll find you again and I'll bathe in your fucking blood DO YOU HEAR ME YOU'RE FUCKING DEAD YOU'RE FUCKING—"

And he was gone.

Somehow, you find yourself kneeling. The mask is suddenly suffocating you, and there's no need to Illustrate anymore, so you rip it back and continue to stare at the point where he vanished. The window had already sealed up and the meteor carried on with its journey, but nonetheless you stared. And stared. And stared.

But he was gone.

And so in a way were you. And you would not come back for a very long time.


	2. BE KARKAT 2 ==>

BE KARKAT ==>

You are thoroughly beside yourself with WTF. Actually, when are you ever not beside yourself with whatever vehement emotion you're feeling at the time, but this time, you have set aside a side for yourself so you can completely be beside yourself to the utmost fucking side you could be. There are four sides to this box of fury you're in right now, and you're not about to stay as the only one in it. You storm over to the newcomer, and lean over to point an accusatory finger at her empty gaze.

"You. Who in fuck are you, and what was with the acid blacktentacle wielding asshole that you brought with you."

She said nothing, staring vacantly at the point where the voidfucker was last seen.

"Karkat, stop it. She obviously had a conflicting and emotional bond with the void mage, and is most likely caught in the wake of what appeared to be a highly tumultuous break up." Rose had intervened, striding forward and kneeling in front of her fellow species. "It probably didn't help that we…forcibly disabled his arm in front of her."

"Oh forgive me for not introducing myself like the gentlegrub I should fucking be, but I don't know if you noticed but she already knows who I fucking am," you snapped.

"There are many alternate universes we've encountered and haven't encountered yet," Kanaya replied. "Is it really so impossible that the session she's from contains information about ours?"

"Guys what's going on? Is everyone ok?!"

You flawlessly execute a facepalm + facedrag combo. Terezi and Dave finally arrive on the scene, and jog their way to your group, Terezi inhaling deeply to assess the events that preceded her.

"Well thanks for showing up at record fucking speed! Was your nose too deep into sniffing Dave's bulge that you couldn't smell the powerful stenches of fear and destruction of our home of almost 3 years!?"

"Put a pail in it Karkat," Terezi dismissed without even looking at you, focusing her attention on the newcomer, and sending you spinning into a whole new dimension of pissed off. She sniffed her way around the girl, who's god tier form and weapon had melted away. She was now wearing another big, shabby black coat minus a hood, with a black shirt and pants. Two black pencils stuck out of the pockets of her coat. Also, a pair of ugly, blocky brown glasses had appeared on her face, which started sliding down her nose until they could hardly be considered a help to her vision. Not that she seemed to care. Great, you thought. Without the god tier, she's another useless human with useless baggage that doesn't even take care of herself. The only remotely appealing feature on this human bitch was a head of long, brunette hair that shone with tones reminiscent of a well-polished piece of treeflesh.

Terezi sniffed around the human, who seemed to take no notice of her. "I smell charcoal," she grinned. "Graphite, wood…smells like a fellow master artist!"

"Who is the other master artist she's a fellow to," Dave asked. "I don't see anyone fitting the category."

"Don't pretend like you don't worship my exquisitely cool portraits of you," Terezi gleefully smiled while sticking her tongue at him. Your protein chute dances the polka of silent fury, as it always does any time you hear these two converse.

"Excuse me, but I believe your name was…stated as Erem?" Kanaya asked politely. "May we refer to you as such?"

For the first time during the exchange, the human (you guess you're calling this brand spanking new pile of human waste Erem from here on out) reacted by slowly nodding, though still not removing her gaze from the sky.  
"Ok great, we're each officially fucking recognized by name," you growled. "Are we going to circle the fuck up and exchange inane human pleasantries with each other now?"

"I already know you all," Erem spoke with a flat tone that unfortunately reminded you of a certain orange matesprit stealer. "Where I came from, you were characters from a comic on the internet."

"There is an incoming shitstorm of all the shits I'm about to give about this," you shout sarcastically. "Oh wait! False forecast everybody, replaced by a sprinkling of 'I actually DONT give a shit' and accompanied by some 'Get off my fucking meteor' tradewinds."

"Karkat, please for the love of grub shut the fuck u—"

Before Terezi could finish her admonishment, you realize that your vision has been obscured. Blocking your line of vision are a pair of ugly blocky glasses, with a pair of brown orbs that look deader than your creepy moirail's.

You also note the added pressure of two hands around your throat.


	3. BE EREM ==>

BE EREM ==>

Everyone is so loud. You can't tolerate noise right now. You can't tolerate sight either, but your poor vision aids you with this. But there is nothing defending you from all the noise, especially the noise you've presently got by the throat. Why was this guy ever one of your faves. He voice is about as delicate as a toucan's and you can't fucking take it right now. You notice that the others around him have all started to move to pull you away, but they don't come forward when they see you're not hurting him. Just…holding his throat. With both hands. You know, typical human greeting ritual.

His reddish irises have shrunk a little with the dilating of pupils in apprehension. You watch his face. As the seconds tick, the apprehension begins to melt to cautious irritation to you acting as a sort of neck brace, but still not fully angry as he's not sure whether or not the situation could turn choke-y at any moment. Then his eyes turn a different shape, a shape that you don't understand right away. They seemed to register surprise, but now they look…now they're looking away. You actually feel confused now, as you can swear the look in his eyes are one of guilt. You become even more confused when you realize someone threw water on your face at some point.

Wait what.

You release Karkat's neck and bring your hands up to your face. Your cheeks seem to have developed rivers. And the source is…

 

BAIL ==>

Erem ducked and ran, executing a nice emotional bail out of the group, through the portal, and into the meteor's depths. For someone who'd spent a year running and learning how to draw offenses and defenses into life faster than the speed of void magick corrosion, fleeing the exclaiming mix group of trolls and humans was no problem.

Dave glanced unamused at Karkat. "This does not help your reputation as a troll who repels every female from any species into a dead sprint from your general area."

"Shut the fuck up," mumbled Karkat. As if he needed someone else other than himself haranguing himself for being such an astronomical turd at the wrong time AGAIN. When will he ever fucking learn. And when will human females stop being so goddamn flighty. "I…let's just leave her the fuck alone for now and clean up around here."

The human female mentioned was indeed continuing in her goddamned flight through the network of halls and tunnels in the meteor. Physical exercise was never her favorite method of relieving stress, which is probably a good indicator of how irreversible her levels of fucked up were currently at. Winding deeper into the bowels of the meteor, she turned into a rather large hall with machinery lining the walls. Dimly illuminated, the hall seemed to stretch on into darkness and forever, which quite honestly sounded like the perfect place to be for her. Her journey there was rudely halted when she slipped and ate the grandest of shits on the hard stone floor.

Erem distantly recognized that if she were in a normal state, this would've really…REALLY fucking hurt. Her nose was at least bruised, the entire right side of her face was having a field day in pain, and she could see blood pooling out from somewhere. Probably from her mouth, judging by the taste and streak of agony that opened across her tongue. Glasses have flown to freedom in the meteordark.

In a normal state, she would have been vulnerable. In a normal state, she would have cried, because there was someone to hear her. In a normal state, that someone would have picked her up exasperatedly, but would have hurried to the nearest first aid kit, and gently bathed the blood off her face, replacing the crimson fluid with a kiss. But that someone was as good as dead now, so there was no point to crying. However, she could not prevent a soft whine of grief, echoing out of a primal place where to be alone was to die. Maybe death wouldn't be so bad if she didn't already know that death was probably the least peaceful place you could be in this story.

Erem propped herself up on her elbows in a beginning effort to find her glasses, staring down for a moment to quietly contemplate the blood pool that was still growing, nurtured by the drops still seeping vertically out of her lips. She finally looked up, squinting at her blurry surroundings. In front of her was a kind of funky looking machine. They were two black pillars decorated with large, pale circles. She squinted harder at them, but to no avail, because since when has squinting ever really fucking worked for someone with pathetically bad vision. She pulled herself forward, and craned her neck back to look up at the rest of the machine. God this thing is weird. The pillars go up into a single thicker black area, and on top of that was a round, but strangely edgy shape with two long yellow antennae-looking things coming out of the top. The machine is making some sort of noise as well, a repetitive, somewhat eerie noise that sounds suspiciously like honkingoh god damn it it's the clown.


	4. BE GAMZEE ==>

BE GAMZEE ==>

HoNk :O)

 

BE EREM ==>

You wake up to insufferable cranial pain and restricted movement. You crack your mouth open for a small groan, but find that half of your lips are somewhat sealed by coagulated blood. From the feel of things, three quarters of your face and some of your hair are caked with blood. Did I mention the tremendous amount of skull excruciation you’re in right now? Just in case you did, a new wave of PAIN floods your head, pounding with every beat of your heart pumping blood. You don’t think you’re bleeding anymore thanks to the giant scab you feel like your head has become. You lift one hand to instinctively touch your damage, but some sort of steel band has you trapped against…something breathing? And warm. And you’re on a bed. And really what in the name of all fucks is happening.

You still can’t see, and all you remember is some vague concept of you being bludgeoned into unconsciousness no doubt by Gamzee and his jokerkind. You can honestly say you’re not surprised. He is hands down your favorite character in the comic, but in reality as a manic creature bent on the oppression of the lesser, your fondness of him drops dramatically. You have to escape your bondage somehow and get the fuck out of here record time. Your upper arms are both pinned by the band, but you can move everything from the elbow down. It’s when you lift your hands to feebly struggle against the band, and when the band closes tighter in what appears to be a cuddling motion that you realize that the band isn’t some strange troll-material restraining belt. It’s an arm. And it just pulled you in closer against the someone it belongs to.

You hear a sleepy murmur and shudder with horror as a face nestles closer to the top of your head. You just had the worst break up in all of time-space paradox history and you are in absolutely no mood to rebound, especially when it feels like goblins are running around inside your head beating the insides of your skull joyfully with little clubs. You twist bodily around, giving yourself a grade F in a pitiful effort to get away. Whoever this is, they’re too damn strong, and you are at the moment very weak. And very tired. In fact, your eyes are slowly beginning to close. The warmth and rhythmic breathing of the body next to you is comfortable, somewhat relieving the pain in your head. You’re starting to get sleepy. Verrryyy sleeeppyyyyy…


	5. NO FUCK THAT ==>

NO FUCK THAT ==>

With a huge push of willpower, accompanied by a feral growl you put every bit of strength into flinging the arm off of you.

Nothing happens. Splash from a Magicarp was more effective than your desperate bid for freedom. So you play your final card instead.

You throw your head back and smash it against the face of your non-consensual bed partner. He releases you with a loud honk, bringing his arms away from you and supposedly to his freshly broken nose. You attempt to stagger upright through the renewed lightning cracks of pain that shot through your head at the moment you launched your assault, but instead fall back onto cold stone floor. In the moment you take to register your surroundings, your shitty vision sees the undressed mattress you and Gamzee were lying on, Gamzee snarling and clutching his nose, and not much else other than dark gray walls and some blurry objects against the opposite wall. It seems as if Gamzee had a sort of UGGA THUMP UM FEMALE BRING UM BACK TO CAVE situation with you, and had indeed ugga thumped you with his club and dragged you back to this rat hole. Fucking men never change, no matter how many eons go by or what species they are.

As Gamzee stands to his full and considerable height, you grab at the pockets in your coat for your pencilkind. Finding one, you sketch a new pair of glasses and settle them on your face. At least you can see now, ignoring for a moment the crippling migraines and blood mask you’re still in possession of. You put your glasses on not a moment to soon as Gamzee whips a club down at you again, and you roll hastily away. His purple eyes were a mad shade of red and the scars on his face contorted with the rage stamped on his face. You know he’s far more physically powerful than you, even with your body enchantments which you don’t even have time for. You are superior to him in speed, and prove this by Illustrating scores of chains that throw themselves on him. He beats back a few, shatters more than a bunch, but you keep drawing and drawing until finally he’s nestled securely in a cocoon of chains. Thank god you finally immobilized him, as you’re in really no condition to fight anyone anymore. Your hands are shaking, and the pounding in your head is kind of making it hard to see right now, even with your new glasses. You crawl over to a wall adjacent to him, and rest against it, panting.

“Why…am I here,” you croak.

“Motherfucker you ain’t got a right to be asking me SHIT,” he snarls. “The mirthful messiahs gave you to me as some motherfuckin compensation.”

“Yeah, compensating for what,” you respond, feeling anger begin to rise within you. Your ex tried to kill you. You get harassed by trolls and superhumans immediately after. Then a clown bashes you over the head, made you sleep with him, and now you’re here and seriously FUCK TODAY.

“Your blood bitch,” he spat. “I don’t have any fucking red blood. I got yellow, green, blue, colors out the ASS except for red. Only Karkat has and he’s my motherfucking bestest moirail EVER and you can’t be all up and killing your moirails, you dig? And those other human motherfuckers are no touchy.” The corners of his mouth stretched up into the grin you used to love so much in the comic. Now you just kind of want to rip his lips off and feed them to him. “And then you come crawling out of fuckin nowhere and now I got me some red motherfuckin blood to paint some real fuckin mirthful murals of the dark carnival.”

“Of course, how could I _forget_ about the whole blood paint thing you have going on,” you roll your eyes. You don’t give a fuck anymore. He’s making too much noise and needs to shut up. Right now. But he doesn’t. The anger in you grows more sickening and uncontrollable with every word he fucking oozes.

“FUCKIN UNTIE ME you motherfucking NOTHING,” he shrieks. “Who the fuck do you think you are to suppress a high motherfucking subjuggulator?! You dare, after I allowed you the motherfuckin honor to sleep with this royal motherfucker. You should be singing praises of me to the motherfuckin SKIES for licking the worthless blood of your face bitc—“

The rest of his rant was cut short by you punching him as hard as fucking possible in the face.


	6. UNLEASH YEARS OF REPRESSED HATRED

UNLEASH YEARS OF REPRESSED HATRED ==>

Blow after blow rained on Gamzee’s face. He was too durable to be actually harmed by them, but they did keep him talking for a bit while Erem took an acrobatic pirouette off the handle.

“I’m suppressing YOU!? I’ve been suppressed my whole, fucking, LIFE” she screamed, enunciating “life” with a punch in his eye. He merely spit in her face, honked, and started laughing. Freaking out on a professional level now, Erem straddled him, grabbed his broken nose, and tweaked it. That definitely hurt the Grand Highblood’s descendent, a fact he made apparent with a howl of pain. “I have been lorded over by a manipulative cocksucker since long before I started playing that game,” she hissed, slowly turning his nose back and forth until tears started marring his face paint. “You’ve had it real nice on your end haven’t you? You just sat on your fucking ass on a pile of horns until you ran out of slime drugs, then you got bored and decided to wipe out several of your friends, and I’m supposed to kiss your fucking shoes or something?” She stopped twisting his nose, leaving him gasping with pain, still helpless because of the chains. Erem pulled out her pencil again and etched runes onto her hands. “We both understand that in terms of physical strength you would beat me all day, any day. However…” She picked up a stray piece of chain and looped it around his neck. “With a little adjustment, I can be strong too. See?”

Grabbing the ends of the chain with both hands, she pulled them taught. The body enhancements on her hands glowed, giving her the strength to successfully start strangling Gamzee. Confusion, then panic lit up his dark orange and purple eyes as the chain bit into his normally resilient neck. She showed no signs of relenting, pulling the chain tighter while a sadistic grin twisted her features. Gamzee struggled violently, but there were too many chains pinning his arms to his sides. He could only lie helplessly as he retched and rasped for breath, his tongue lolling out of his gaping mouth. Veins stood out on his forehead as bile started to rise in his gullet, and despair dominated his mind because how could he, descendent of the Grand Highblood, end it like this, and the hands of a broken and blind human female, it can’t end like this, it couldn’t possibly, the darkness is starting to grow across his vision, it hurts, no no no no no—

Then the deadly pressure was gone. A huge intake of miraculous air filled his lungs as he gulped down oxygen he was beginning to think he’d never taste again. Erem looked on coldly as his chest rose rapidly between her legs with each breath. 

“How did that feel Gamzee?” she cooed. “Being truly suppressed. Completely unable to defend yourself though you desperately wanted to, a fate blacker than your shitty dark carnival closed in on you. Try to spend the majority of your fucking life like that. And the best thing about it is, just like my old situation” She grabbed a fistful of his hair and shook him to emphasize her next words: “There was. Absolutely. Nothing. You. Could. Do. To. Stop. It.” She let go and his head bounced against the floor.

Gamzee struggled to speak. “You…know of the motherfuckin dark carnival?” he said hoarsely. “And you…you dare…fucking blaspheme…!”

“Oh I know a lot about you Gamzee,” she replied, casually pulling out a small Exacto knife from one of her pockets. She stabbed it into his chest and he howled in pain. “I know, for example that you can take machine gun fire like…half a fucking hour and you won’t die. Kind of hilarious, but seriously, what’s the point of being so resilient?” She twisted the knife and sweat broke out on his brow as he swore in agony. “Especially when you don’t die after all this suffering.” She leaned in and whispered into his ear, “I also know about your little sneakfest with Kurloz and Caliborn. If you don’t want me to blow the lid on your shindig, you better do what I fucking say.” You didn’t care if all of existence was destroyed, really. You just needed someone to feel the same agony you felt until kingdom come finally came in an explosive ecstasy of rainbow cracks and splinters.

Erem took two of her fingers and shoved them into Gamzee’s mouth, forcing them all the way to the back of his throat until her nails scratched the tender flesh and he gagged.

“Call me your queen.” He looked up at her with hatred and merely honked. She ripped the still-embedded exacto knife in a diagonal cut, opening a horrible gash in his chest and causing him to utter a strangled sob around her fingers.

“Say it.”

With a knife buried in his chest, completely bound from chest to toe, and with a batshit crazy girl’s fingers itching the back of his throat, Gamzee felt, for the first time in all his years of consciousness, the nauseating emotion of fear.

“…q…queen…”


	7. BE KARKAT 3 ==>

BE KARKAT ==>

 

It's been almost two days by earth standards, and neither you nor anyone else has seen where the new human went. You were fidgeting in the recreational area with Rose, who was consulting some random grimoire about the Furthest Ring. She's read every book out of the library in here, and she'd probably been through this one at least twice, as if reading the same shit over and over again would make the words reassemble themselves into whatever answers she was looking for, HI ROSE, HERE'S THE SECRET TO DEFEATING LORD ENGLISH. TEE HEE SILLY US, WE'RE JUST LETTERS AND WE DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK WE'RE DOING. PAGES BRO.

You mentally slap yourself out of your ragefantasy about talking letters and direct your ire at Rose.

"Hey can't you do something useful other than nasalfuck your way through shit you've already read?" you say. "Like do some Seer-ish shit and find that renegade female of your species with an eightball or something?"

"If she was inflicting harm in any way, we'd hear about it by now," Rose replies, without looking up from her tome. "Besides, even if she is a God Tier, we outnumber her six to one. Like I have said every time you feel the need to bugle out your worries, leave her alone. You would be doing all of us more harm than good if you confronted her in your usual elegant fashion."

"That's easy to say since she didn't have her fingers around YOUR throat," you huff. You get to your feet. "I'm going to go look for her aga—“

Footsteps from your left interrupt you, and you both turn to see the throatclutcher in question drag herself to the consumption table and collapse into a chair. She looked like utter shit. Her head and hair was basically a massive scab of dried blood, and one eye had swollen shut as the result of a black eye. Rose dropped her book and rushed over while you offer a few friendly words of consolation.

“What in hiveshitting triplefuck happened to you?!”

“Yes, what happened? Is there anything we can do for you?” Rose asked, concern creasing her brow.

“…ah?” Erem seemed to be fighting the urge to sleep, looking through half-lidded eyes at the table. At Rose’s inquiry she looked up blinking with her one eye rapidly. “C…could I just have…some water…please.”

As Rose embarked on a short hydration quest, you walk over to Erem and stand near her awkwardly. You want to say something nice, even compassionate about her injuries, but instinct was urging you to drill her about her whereabouts over the past couple of days at the most audible volume you could pitch.

Instead you try: “Are…are you ok?”

YES KARKAT, THAAAAAT’S THE FUCKING TICKET, ‘IS SHE OK’?! I MEAN FUCK ME SIDEWAYS SHE’S THE POSTER GRUB OF FINE HUMAN HEALTH! HUMANS NORMALLY WALK AROUND WITH MASSIVE HEAD TRAUMA, YOU SEE THAT SHIT EVERY DAY. GOSH, HOW ARE YOU NOT SWIMMING IN BITCHES WITH THAT VERITABLE SEA OF SENSITIVITY YOU POSSESS!!?

Rose has returned with a cup of water, and Erem began to steadily sip it by the time you finish mentally belittling yourself. 

“I understand that you are most likely in desperate need of rest,” said Rose. “We have an abundance of vacant rooms. Would you like me to take you to one? You can tell us what happened later if you feel—“

“Clown,” murmured Erem.

You exchange alarmed looks with Rose. Before either of you can say anything, Terezi walked into the room. She was looking over at her shoulder at the frame she just passed through, a look on her face that indicated that she either saw something disturbing, or that the doorway whispered an obscenity into her ear no one else heard.

“Uhhh…” She pointed with her thumb over her shoulder back the way she came. “Why is Gamzee sitting out there covered in blood with a weird collar on?”

“What!?” you yelped. “Gamzee, you out there??” You’re met with no response. “Gamzee if you’re there get your painted ass out here!”

“Come out,” Erem spoke quietly. Gamzee came around the corner, his normal stupid grin hanging on his face over a metal collar with a weird box on it. He was shirtless, and his toned, elongated torso had several stab wounds in them; as he walked over, a decent indigo blood trail followed him. You run over to your moirail, looking him over with concern.

“Gamzee, jesus fucking…” you falter. “What…just what the fuck happened between you two?” Gamzee shrugged and honked. The honk was immediately followed by his face cringing in pain as a light beeped on the collar. His facial and neck muscles twitched violently, and his hair stood on end. “WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!” you yell, angry but terrified at your unknowledge of what was happening to your best friend.

Erem got up shakily, leaning on the chair for support. She trudged over to Gamzee and pressed a button on the collar, stopping the torment it was inflicting on him. She turns to you. “It’s a shock collar. He won’t shut up with the honking, and this kind of helps.”

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME,” you scream. You whip out the sicklekind out of your strife specibus. “YOU BETTER TAKE THAT INSANE SHIT OFF OF HIM, BEFORE I FUCKING KILL YOU . NO IRONY AT ALL YOU PSYCHOPATHIC PENCILFUCKER, TAKE THAT OFF HIM RIGHT FUCKING NOW.”

“Gamzee, I pressed the button,” she says instead. “Do what we came here to do so we can get the fuck out of here.”

“GAMZEE DON’T TAKE HER ABSURD BULLSHIT, FUCKING SERIOUSLY HOW CAN YOU CUT THE HEADS OFF YOUR LEGITIMATE FRIENDS HEADS, BUT YOU CAN’T BEAT THIS BITCH’S HEAD IN LIKE EGGS FOR A FUCKING CAKE—“

“I don’t know if you can see or anything, but he fucking tried to,” said Erem, looking you coldly in the eyes. “Hurry up Gamzee.” Gamzee’s smile shrinks a little, but he finally speaks.

“I’m sorry.” 

Your jaw performs a human yo-yo trick known as “walk the dog.”

“W—f—wha—“

“Sorry for killing our motherfuckin friends brother,” he answers. After a couple of seconds, Erem pokes him in the face with what looked like a tiny steel wand with a blade attached at the end. He grunts. “And for cutting off their motherfuckin heads.”

Erem turns towards the door. 

“Wait.”

Everyone turned to Terezi as she spoke.

“How pitiful Gamzee,” she snickered, tapping her cane into her hand as she walked towards the two. “Way to let a pint-sized human turn you into her pet. How does it feel? The high and mighty ‘High Subjuggulator’ has been…subjuggulated!” She laughed wickedly at her own joke. Erem gave her a strange smile then said:

“I know what you’re thinking, and you shouldn’t worry about it. I’m not so terrible a person that I would steal something from some hapless blind bitch.”

The smile on Terezi’s face absconded faster than a group of trolls on a meteor from a flying dog with a sword. Before anyone could say or do anything, Erem jumped onto Gamzee’s back.

“Move it,” she growled. Gamzee trotted over to the nearest ventilation window, popped out the frame, and hopped inside, leaving you unable to even begin to know the first thing you wanted to start shouting your horns off about.


End file.
